WAU Students Receive Recognition at National MUN Conference

A delegation of WAU Honors College students participated in the National Model United Nations Conference (NMUN) last weekend and earned an Honorable Mention for their work drafting and debating resolutions. WAU has been attending the NMUN conference since 2022 and this year marks the first time it has received one of the awards handed out by conference organizers.

 

WAU students represented the country of Senegal during the conference and participated in committees including the General Assembly committees, the Economic and Social Committee (ECOSOC), UNICEF, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA). Students collaborated with representatives from more than 100 other countries to draft and debate resolutions on topics that included the impact of malnutrition on infants and children, addressing marine plastic pollution, addressing migration due to climate and the environment, addressing lethal autonomous weapons systems, and many more.

 

Shea Standish, a Senior Political Studies and Honors Interdisciplinary Studies major at WAU, served as the Head Delegate for the WAU team. “I am always thrilled to be a Model United Nations conferences,” she said. “There is something invigorating about meeting with peers from universities all over the country to look at ways to solve real, global issues.”

 

WAU Professor and Associate Director of the Honors College, Dr. Jonathan Scriven, liked the collaborative approach that delegates were taking at the conference. “Any time you can watch student delegates pushing each other to come up with better ideas, you feel good as a professor,” he said. “That’s the kind of thing we talk about in class all the time, so to see it in action is very fulfilling.”

 

During the closing ceremony, the WAU delegation was announced as one of the Honorable Mention delegations, joining other schools in that category such as Clemson University, Lafayette College, Texas Christian University, Florida International University, and Baylor University. Delegations were selected for awards by committee Chairs and conference organizers based on performance during the committee sessions.

 

 

The following WAU Honors College students were part of the Senegal Delegation:

Kyle DeCastro (’25) 

Alanah Alphonse (’27) 

Kimarry Wright (’27) 

Dilcia Flores (’27)

Melissa Corado (’27)

Cata Stiehm (’28)

Aron Coste (’27)

Shea Standish (’25)